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Kiev: Solemn hymns and prayers will resonate in golden-domed Orthodox cathedrals across Ukraine today to mark the 1020th anniversary of this region's conversion to Christianity.
But the sonorous sounds may be drowned out by the din of a fierce political battle.
Ukrainian officials are determined to use the events to lobby for autonomy for the local church from Russia, while the dominant Moscow Patriarchate will fight to retain influence over this mostly Orthodox country of 46 million.
For Ukrainian leaders, recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox church as Moscow's equal would mark a step in their drive to assert independence and shed centuries-long Russian influence. That effort gained strength after the 2004 Orange Revolution, which moved Ukraine away from Moscow and closer to the West.
"Ukraine is an independent state like Bulgaria or Georgia, and it is normal for it to have its own church," said Anatoliy Kolodny, head of the religion studies department at the National Academy of Sciences. "There is nothing strange in that."
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the world's top Orthodox spiritual leader based in Istanbul, Turkey, will attend the ceremonies and could support the autonomy of the Ukrainian church, despite Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II's efforts to thwart the move.
But any sudden decision by Bartholomew could create a major split among the world's 250 million Orthodox believers and set off fierce battles over parishes and valuable church property inside Ukraine, with some priests siding with Moscow and others with Kiev.
"Were this decision to be made today, it would lead to another schism in the church," said Andrei Zolotov, chief editor of the Russia Profile magazine and an expert on Orthodox church affairs.
Oldest links
Recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian church could also sever one of the oldest links between the two neighbouring countries, which both draw their identity from the Christianisation of Kievan Rus, a medieval state that was a forerunner of modern-day Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
The Slavic world's conversion to Christianity began when prince Volodymyr marched his servants into Kiev's Dnieper River to be baptised 1,020 years ago.
Efforts to win autonomy have already split the Ukrainian church. Two breakaway churches have set themselves up since the 1991 Soviet collapse - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, whose self-declared Patriarch Philaret has been excommunicated by Alexy as a renegade, and its splinter, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, also unrecognised.
Both churches are smaller than the Russian-affiliated church, which claims up to 28 million believers here. The two breakaway churches have attempted to unite in hope of winning recognition from Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, but so far have failed. President Viktor Yushchenko, an Orthodox believer, supports Philaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, visiting his church on religious holidays.
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